Katie Deutsch
On Sunday the 24th of November, a boat named The Sea Story left port for a five-day diving trip. The boat would then proceed to sink off the coast of Egypt in the Red Sea on the 25th of November. Their distress call went out at approximately 5:30am. The boat was carrying forty-four people, including thirty-one tourists and thirteen crew members. It sank near the town of Marsa Alam. Preliminary reports have suggested that the boat sank due to an abnormally large wave, sinking it within five to seven minutes. There had been a weather warning for the Red Sea on Sunday and Monday, warning against all maritime activities.
At the time of writing, seven people are still missing- of those accounted for, twenty-eight people were rescued on Monday; none of which with any severe injuries, five people were found on Tuesday, and four bodies were found on Tuesday. Of the sixteen people that were not accounted for on Monday, two of them are British; they are still missing. A number of the survivors were trapped within their cabins as the boat sank, forcing divers to rescue them in a “complicated mission”.
The foreign office currently warns that “Overcrowding and poor safety standards have caused accidents on Red Sea ferries and Nile cruises”. There have been a handful of other accidents similar to this in recent years, including one in 2023, when another diving boat caught on fire in the same area. In that incident, three British people died.
As far as has been yet released, there was nothing wrong with the boat. The boat was built in 2022 and received a one-year validity certificate in March 2024. None of the survivors are reporting any technical issues with the boat, only that a particularly strong wave capsized it.
11% of Egypt’s GDP is based on tourism
The owner and operator of the boat, Dive Pro Liveaboard, has not yet made a statement. The Egyptian government has also been fairly secretive about the current state of the search. The Egyptian navy has taken the lead on the search, partially leading to all the secrecy. Around 11% of Egypt’s GDP is based on tourism, so the government is understandably reluctant to risk hurting the tourism industry.
Katie Deutsch
Featured image courtesy of Jayde Keroi via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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